


we are only dreaming and i'm dreaming only of you

by PsychSpark



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Earth C (Homestuck), F/F, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, like the credits but different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 01:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13400106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychSpark/pseuds/PsychSpark
Summary: "John works on his stand-up routine, Rose finally writes a book – they all try their best to put the past behind them.Except for Terezi.Terezi waits for Vriska to come home."Or, how to lose someone you love, and then how to get them back again.





	we are only dreaming and i'm dreaming only of you

**Author's Note:**

> In this year of our lord 2018 I've written and uploaded a Homestuck fan fiction because god knows it had to happen some time or other.
> 
> Rach x

Once it’s all over, everyone moves on. They go to Can Town and they go back to being kids. Kanaya and Jade occupy themselves with the resurrection of troll and humankind. John works on his stand-up routine, Rose finally writes a book – they all try their best to put the past behind them.

Except for Terezi.

Terezi waits for Vriska to come home.

* * *

A month passes with no sign of her returning. There’s no sign of Aradia or Sollux, either, but no one really thinks they’re going to come back anyway. They’re already falling into routines. Rose and Kanaya hold a housewarming at their new apartment, which Terezi slips out of to sneak her way up to the roof. She’s sitting with her feet hanging over the ledge, cane in her lap when she hears the door open behind her. Eventually, her guest sits down next to her.

“You know she was kind of a huge bitch, right?” Karkat says. Terezi shoots him a glare.

“Hey! I’m just telling the truth, and she _was_ a huge bitch. But I know that she meant a lot to you anyway. I mean, I-” he pauses. “Shit, Terezi, I _get_ it. I still miss Gamzee in this really fucked up way and I fucking hate myself because he’s - you know. He’s awful but I loved him anyway, and it took me ages to see that I couldn’t change him, even if I really wanted to.”

“Mm.” Terezi’s glasses reflect the light of the streetlamps below them when she turns her head. “I don’t think your relationship with Gamzee is comparable to ours.”

“I’m not saying that it is! That’s not what I’m trying to get at here.”

“Then what’s your point?”

“Terezi, what if Vriska doesn’t come back?” Karkat’s question is met with a frown, deep and troubled. He continues, “My point is that the really hard part of letting go of somebody is seeing that at some point you might need to.”

* * *

Following that conversation Terezi stays out of Karkat’s way to the point of it needing an intervention. When Dave sends her a message to say he’s coming over she knows she won’t be able to play the avoidance game anymore. It’s a little disappointing, getting caught out so soon. Two months is nowhere near as long as Terezi is capable of avoiding conflict, and she knows it.

She’s seen into that other life - she knows perfectly well what she’s capable of.

With that thought comes a shudder, and Terezi falters on her way to answering the door. Dave uses the same knock rhythm he always has, and there’s a moment where she considers simply not opening the door.

“C’mon Terezi, let me in.” Dave sounds tired, and more than a little exasperated. She opens the door, somewhat begrudgingly.

“So what’s this about?” She turns around, walks away from Dave towards her kitchen. Thinking about those other things, remembering what she had said, remembering that Vriska was always in too much of a damn hurry to finish anything off right - it’s inconvenient to be dwelling on it at the moment.

“I’m not gonna push for shit you don’t want to talk about, I’m chill. But Kar has worked himself up about something and when I ask about you he clams up, so.”

“If you have to point out that you’re chill, doesn’t it defeat the purpose?”

“Hey, I’ve come here with good intention and you’re calling me out like this? I thought we were closer than that, man.” Dave stands just inside Terezi’s apartment with his hands buried in his pockets, rambling on, and Terezi considers talking to him about it. Because she does _want_ to talk about it, she really wants to talk about it, but she has limited options. Karkat is out for obvious reasons, Kanaya is also out for obvious reasons. Rose never liked Vriska much anyway, which leaves Dave. But Terezi knows, she _knows_ that he doesn’t understand how troll romance works. She already knows that he doesn’t understand the full significance of her relationship with Vriska and she already knows he probably never will.

“... and it was stacked up like we were gonna be best buds but you were always off doing something with Vriska so we never got a chance to-”

“Do you understand that Vriska and I were more than just ‘best bros’?” Terezi interrupts Dave, having barely been aware that he was still talking. “A moirallegiance isn’t a friendship, you know. It’s _more_ than that.” She’s not sure why she wants to get him to understand, and she knows it’s an uphill climb, but she really needs someone to talk to about this.

“So this is about Vriska?” Dave asks, eyebrows peeking out above his shades. “I know how hard it is to lose a friend, like, I thought John was dead for three years and I was never closer to anyone else until recently-”

“ _No_ , this is _not_ like that.” Terezi wants to pull her hair out. “What if it was Karkat? What if Karkat was the one who flew off to the Furthest Ring to kill Lord English?”

“Whoa, look, what Kar and I have going on is _way_ different-”

“It’s closer than comparing it to you and John-”

“And he wouldn’t do that,” Dave says. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Okay.” Terezi nods, “Now imagine Karkat wanted to be a hero.”

“O… kay,” Dave slows down and Terezi can see him trying to connect the dots how she wants him to. She waits, to see if he’s going to get it, to see if he needs another push towards her point. Ideas of what to say next lurk in her mind, none of them satisfy her as the right option.

“What if he went off somewhere he might not come back from and didn’t spare a moment to say goodbye?” Terezi loses track of what it is she’s trying to convince Dave of, but she doesn’t care all that much. What she really wants is to have someone _understand_.

What she really wants is for Vriska to be here.

“Look, you know I’m not really hot shit with all the troll romance stuff, but that’s Karkat’s thing, right? Dude has a PhD in troll romance analysis or whatever, maybe you should talk to him about it.” Dave rubs the back of his neck, “You should talk to him, at least.”

* * *

Terezi does end up talking to Karkat, and it does help. Dave is right, Karkat is much better at this kind of thing than anyone gives him credit for. Best of all, Karkat sits and listens to Terezi talk about Vriska, and that alone helps her feel better. Karkat makes comments, some callous, some sympathetic, but none out of line. After he goes Terezi curls up on her bed and she cries, because she hopes it’ll make her feel better. Initially it makes her feel worse - much worse, in fact - and her silent tears turn into hiccupped sobs. Those sobs turn to tremors, and the tremors turn to sleep. When she wakes up her sheets are stained teal and her throat is dry, but part of the weight that had been settled on her ribcage has lifted, and as she gets herself a glass of water she feels better. Not a lot better, but better at all, and she’s glad for it.

After that she makes a proper attempt to enjoy her new life with the others, tries to keep in mind that she’s not even ten sweeps old yet, tries for the first time to imagine a future for herself without Vriska in it.

She hates every avenue of possibility she’s faced with, but Karkat’s original point had been right. At some point, even if it isn’t now, Terezi may need to let go of the idea that Vriska will come home. She hates that, too, but she knows that thinking about it is better for her than not - a leaf out of Vriska’s book.

* * *

Time moves on, and though she keeps talking to Karkat about it, the conversations become more infrequent, and Terezi lies awake at night wondering if it’s because she’s letting go, or if it’s because she’s worried that Karkat will worry. In what feels like absolutely no time at all they’re celebrating one year out of the game, and in no-time-at-all after that they’re celebrating Kanaya and Jade’s success at repopulation. It’s a simple get together, something Roxy or Jake or Roxy and Jake planned. They’re on the rooftop of someone’s apartment building, watching civilisation like ants beneath them. John is ribbing Karkat about their first conversations, which Terezi thinks is _just like him_ , Jane is trying to stop Dirk from helping her cook, Rose and Kanaya are sitting as close as possible while they murmur to each other - Terezi looks around and sees _normalcy_. Without really meaning to, Terezi clears her throat to get everyone’s attention. When she has it, she lifts her glass and looks at the sky.

“To everyone who didn’t make it.” She says. “To Sollux, to Aradia, to the ghosts.”

“To Vriska.” Rose is the one who says it, which surprises Terezi.

“To Vriska,” John repeats. Terezi stands and listens as a chorus of “here here’s” and “to Vriska’s” are passed around, and when silence settles Terezi takes a drink. The moment takes her by surprise, but she’s not complaining. She waits for a moment where Rose is alone and goes to her side.

“Thank you.”

“For what, exactly, are you thanking me?” Rose asks, her small smile giving away that she definitely knows what she’s being thanked for already. Terezi grumbles, near-regretting her decision instantly.

“You’ve been open about disliking Vriska in the past,” Terezi mutters, the smell of Rose’s complacency making her drink taste bad. “Thank you for saying it.”

“You mean, ‘thank you for saying it so I didn’t have to’, right?” Rose says. Terezi regrets walking over here immensely. She doesn’t want to leave without clawing herself at least one point on the flighty broad horseshitometer.

“Sure, but we both know that would never be your first reason to do it.” Terezi grins - she likes grinning, cause she knows her grin makes people uncomfortable, and discomfort breeds vulnerability - and Rose’s eyes narrow.

“I’m not one to write a person off because my opinion of them is low - Vriska saved us all, and I am not going to be the one caught saying otherwise. I’d be too worried about meeting the wrong end of that cane.” Terezi can tell Rose is being sarcastic, but the statement burns under her skin. It’s not like she’s referring to what happened in the alternate timeline - what would’ve happened if Egbert hadn’t intervened - she is, after all, quite handy with her cane.

But it catches her off guard nonetheless.

She keeps grinning anyway, “I love when you use that tone - smells delightful.” Terezi goes to lick Rose’s hand - the human draws away before she can, but she wasn’t really trying to lick her anyway. It’s an old tactic, a little sloppy, but it gets the job done.

“Ugh,” Rose rolls her eyes, “I thought you’d grown out of that habit. Look, I mentioned Vriska cause I thought she deserved it.”

“Hey, I was just saying thank you. You’re the one who made it a thing.”

“And I’m going to be the one who stops it being a thing, evidently.” Kanaya hands Rose a drink and smiles at Terezi. “How are you this evening?” There’s steel in Kanaya’s eyes, but that isn’t unusual. Not to Terezi, at least.

“Just fine.” Terezi keeps grinning, and slips out of the conversation a moment later.

* * *

More time passes. In turn they all pass the age of adulthood, and Terezi continues to sorely miss Vriska’s presence in her life. Jake sets out to travel the world, Jane takes control of her industry, and the rest of them go to college. Another sweep and a half comes and goes, and Terezi finds herself stunned on some days, realising she hadn’t thought about Vriska at all for the last day, week, two weeks. In the time leading up to Kanaya and Rose’s wedding, she realises with a small dose of horror and a massive dose of self-loathing that she has no _idea_ when she last thought about Vriska. It shakes her to her core, so much so that despite being a central component of a heated discussion about the integration of human and troll legislation she gets to her feet and leaves the room, just fast enough for it to be described as ‘fleeing’. Terezi slams the door shut behind her, looks up and down the hall and ends up with her back to the wall by the door as she slides down it and buries her head in her arms.

Terezi shuts her eyes and presses her face into her knees, runs her fingers into her hair and grips so tight it hurts, so tight she can feel it coming out, because _she’s really not coming back_. She hears the door open, hears a frantic shuffle of feet, hears someone yelling like they’re trying to keep their voice door, hears someone get shoved into the hallway with her.

Terezi breathes through her mouth so she doesn’t have to know who it is seeing her like this.

A hand lands on her shoulder, a thumb makes small circles on her back. The sensation comes with someone cooing quietly, and Terezi has enough information to determine that this person is human, and mostly likely female. In the time that’s passed she’s gotten to be on good terms with all of the humans, so this information alone comforts her. She doesn’t think it’s Rose; doesn’t seem like something she would do. She can rule out Jane because she’s across the country for work at the moment. Terezi decides she doesn’t care whether it’s Jade or Roxy, so she throws herself into a hug, and breathes in deeply.

“Hey, what’s up?” Roxy’s arms wrap around Terezi’s body, effectively preventing Terezi from dragging them into a heap on the floor. “What’s going on?” Terezi had always liked Roxy. From the first time they spoke she knew she liked Roxy, and nothing had happened since to change it. Despite this, she doesn’t feel comfortable telling Roxy what’s wrong, so she keeps quiet and she holds Roxy tightly until the panic subsides. When it does, she loosens her grip, sniffs, and leans back and away from the human.

“Okay, is there someone you’d rather be talking to?” This is exactly what Terezi likes about Roxy. The girl is chill as fuck. Terezi shakes her head minutely, tucking back into a ball. Roxy asks if she’ll come back inside and Terezi tells her not yet, but soon. Upon re-entry to the apartment, Terezi hears talking in hushed voices until Karkat yells, in true form, “Fuck that - no, fuck you Lalonde - I’m talking to her.” and thunders out the door. He shuts the door behind him, and as soon as he does the puff is gone. Terezi can’t help it. She laughs.

“Oh, wow, fuck you Terezi. Really? I can go back inside.”

“No, don’t.” It _pains_ her to say it, but she really does want to talk about this to him. “How can I enjoy your rant through the door?” Also, she loves to tease him. Karkat makes a face as he sits on the floor opposite her.

“You know what, because I’m not such an inflated windbag, I can be the bigger guy here and ignore the fact that you’re being _disgracefully fucking rude_ because I can see you need help. I’m sensitive enough to set aside my bruised emotions because I know when not to get my bulge in a fucking twist.”

“Yeah,” Terezi giggles, “I can definitely see that.”

“Haha. Hahahahaha. I get it, you can ‘see’ it. Fuck you.” Karkat glowers at her, but sobers a moment later. “So, what’s this about?” He sits cross-legged with his hands in his lap, playing with his thumbs. Terezi shifts uncomfortably.

“You were right, I think.” She admits, head pointed to her own lap. Karkat looks suspicious.

“About what?”

“You- years ago you told me that the hardest part of letting someone going was seeing that I needed to.” For a moment Karkat looks completely lost, until suddenly something clicks in his brain.

“This is about _Vriska_?”

“Well, yeah!” Terezi huffs, “What else would it be about, nubhorns?”

“I mean, it’s been sweeps, and we haven’t talked about it in ages-”

“Yeah well I haven’t _thought_ about it in ages, have I?” Terezi snaps, “ _That’s_ what this is about. I realised that I hadn’t - I haven’t… I haven’t thought about her in so long.” She turns her head. “It just hit me all at once, you know? If I’m not even thinking about her anymore then _no one_ is. If I let her slip away, then…”

“Look, I don’t think anyone is ever going to truly forget about her, if that’s what you’re worried about. I mean, fuck, she killed Lord English. That’s pretty unforgettable.”

“Yeah.” Terezi knows that Karkat is trying his best, but he doesn’t quite get it. Even after all this time, no one understands how much Terezi had cared about Vriska. No one ever really got how much Terezi loved her.

…

Aw, shit.

Terezi buries her face back into her knees, because apparently _she_ hadn’t even known how much she loved Vriska. And she’s only realising now. Only now, as she’s finally letting go.

Some shitty Seer of Mind she is.

* * *

The wedding comes and goes, and it’s only a few weeks after when Sollux Captor flies face first into a brick wall in Can Town. He gets picked up by someone, probably Karkat, put through the blender of their friendship group and eventually ends up on Terezi’s couch, because all vision impaired roads lead to Pyrope. Facing him is putting Terezi in a peculiar situation. To put it simply, his presence gives her hope that Vriska isn’t really gone. But it’s a painful hope - an unwelcome hope. She _finally_ gave up, and then paradox space goes and throws this at her. She doesn’t know whether to hope or not.

“So,” Sollux says.

“So,” she replies, “still blind?” “What the fuck do you think, TZ?”

“Still an asshole, too.” Terezi grins, wide. Sollux can’t see it, but he knows. He knows that she’s grinning from ear to ear.

“Shut up,” he can’t help the way the corner of his mouth is turning up.

“Can’t face the truth?”

“Shut _up_ ,” he grunts. When Terezi actually _does_ shut up, he loses the wry smirk he’d been wearing. “Wait, did I fuck u-” “Is she coming back?”

“What?” “Vriska,” Terezi turns her head, casts her nose towards the window like she expects to smell what she’s looking for there, “is Vriska coming back?”

“Shit, TZ, I dunno. If she was gonna she’d probably be _back_ by now.”

“Right.” Her nose twitches. “So, I hear you need help not breaking your face on a regular basis.”

“Shut up.”

It twists Terezi up inside, having to decide to hope or not to hope. Most of all, it bothers her that if she and Vriska traded places, Vriska would’ve made her choice _years_ ago. Worst of all, Terezi isn’t sure what her choice would’ve been.

* * *

Rose wakes one morning and something is different. She’s disoriented, like someone’s moved everything one inch to the left. Frustratingly, no one else seems to know what she’s talking about when she brings it up. It persists across a few days, until Kanaya asks about it while Rose is frowning over a notebook.

“Perhaps if you equated it to something else. Has anything in the past bothered you like this?” Kanaya sets a cup of herbal tea at Rose’s desk before she takes a seat nearby, picks up her own notebook and looks back at Rose, pencil in hand. Rose leans back, thinks about the request.

“It’s not unlike the sensation of attempting to discern what Roxy is up to. It’s like there’s a void in my sight.” Rose chews her lip, taps her pen against her desk. “In fact, it’s exactly like that, except not quite so… specific. It’s as though there’s a field. It’s like there’s a field of absence. Like there’s something… hiding…” Rose frowns as she trails off. Kanaya watches Rose’s eyes dart from side to side, as they always do when she’s trying to piece something together. Kanaya sees something almost clouding her wife’s gaze, and then Rose snaps out of her reverie.

“Kanaya,” Rose turns, looks her in the eye, “what or who would be hiding from me?”

“I’m not sure I’m the person to ask,” Kanaya admits, “in fact, I’d say you’re the best person to ask. You or some other Seer.” Rose’s eyebrows lift, just slightly.

“Are you suggesting I talk to Terezi?”

“If this is bothering you as much as it seems to be, then yes, I think that would be a wise move.”

* * *

Rose knocks on Terezi’s door and a moment later, John opens it. Wordlessly, Rose lifts her eyebrows. John cocks his head to the side.

“What?”

“Am I be interrupting anything important? I need to speak with Terezi.”

“Well, you _would’ve_ been interrupting something important if Terezi hadn’t derailed my attempt to show her the comedy genius of Dave Chappelle.” John grabs his jacket from the hook by the door, and Rose takes the opportunity to peer at Terezi, who’s scowling at the floor. It isn’t the expression Rose expected to see. She glances at the television and sees the Dog of Wisdom video paused halfway through. John catches her looking.

“Honestly, I don’t know why I bother with her,” he mutters. Rose chuckles, shaking her head.

“I think it’s cute.” She whispers back, wearing the smug expression that Terezi should have on right now. John rolls his eyes and steps out into the hallway, and Rose looks back at Terezi.

“May I come in?”

“Is anything stopping you?” Terezi responds, switching the tv off. Rose steps in, cautious, and removes her coat. She places it where John’s jacket had been a moment before and then carefully sits by Terezi on the couch.

“Excellent choice of video.”

“I thought so. I was going to start playing those Gaston ones next.” Terezi’s grinning now, but Rose isn’t quick to disregard the look from before.

“Is everything alright?” Rose asks. Terezi sniffs.

“I thought you came her looking for my help, not the other way around.”

“Yes, well, that was before I saw something might be bothering you.” Rose sighs, “I’d rather not have a competition tonight because, as you said, I came here for a reason.”

“Alright, Lalonde, what is it?”

“I’ve noticed something… peculiar. There’s something obstructing my sight.” Rose looks around the apartment. “In fact, it seems to be more apparent here.”

“So why come to me?”

“I doubt you’ll disagree with the statement that we are the smartest among our cohort,” Rose looks at Terezi carefully, “and two heads are always better than one.”

“I think I know what you mean.” Terezi’s scowl returns, hands clasped over the top of her cane. “There’s no change to my sight, but things have been different recently.”

“In what way?” Rose can’t help herself as she shifts, facing Terezi more directly.

“It smells,” Terezi tilts her nose up, “darker.”

Terezi lacks a way of communicating what she means in a way Rose won’t scoff at, but she knows leaving it where it is will do the job better than explaining further anyway. She noticed it a few days ago, everything around her steeped in an unnatural shade.

“Can you think of anyone who would be able to do that?”

“I assume you’ve ruled Roxy out already?” Terezi asks. Rose glares, then looks troubled.

“Would she have any reason to do this?” It feels dirty, asking Terezi what she is, but Rose is confident that Roxy isn’t the culprit. That said, there’s no harm in confirming innocence. Terezi focuses for a moment.

“Not that I can tell,” she murmurs, “however, I can think of another person who could do something like this.”

“Who?”

“Well, it does seem like something a Thief of Light would be able to do.” Terezi shakes her head. “That’s dumb, though. Haven’t seen one of those in sweeps.” Terezi enjoys being blind. There’s a long list of reasons why, but her favourite at the moment is that it lets her be observant without being obvious. She keeps frowning as she takes a deep breath in through her nose, gauging Rose’s reaction.

“Curious.” Terezi almost laughs at Rose’s response. It’s guarded, obviously so, but Rose _reeks_ of contemplation.

“Is that all you have to offer?”

“When you’re putting me on the spot like this, yes.” Terezi looks in Rose’s direction as the human gets to her feet.

“Well, if you have nothing else to say, I think I’ll be heading back home.”

“Glad to see you enjoy my company.” Terezi grins. Rose rolls her eyes, a laugh pretending to be a scoff making its way out her mouth.

“You’re incorrigible.”

* * *

When Rose is gone, Terezi collapses onto the couch, facing the ceiling. The thought that it _couldwouldmight_ be Vriska has been plaguing her for days, and voicing it has only provided her with a new depth of dread. What if she’s right? What if Vriska is back, lurking in the shadows, biding her time. It wouldn’t be out of character - if Vriska has a tactical advantage, she’s going to use it. Terezi only ever gets that far before she hops off the train of thought, because what if she’s wrong? What if she’s seeing Vriska in this situation just because she wants to?

At the very least, Rose has confirmed that Terezi isn’t making it up. Something is out there, lurking in the periphery of the gang. And if Rose can’t discern its origin, then it’s probably going to end up being important, no matter what it is. Terezi gets her phone out and shoots off a text to Rose.

_1T WOULD PROB4BLY B3 4 GOOD 1D34 TO SH4R3 TH1S 1NFORM4T1ON W1TH TH3 OTH3RS._

_I was just thinking the same thing. I’ll make a bulletin announcement later this evening. Keep thinking about it, I’m certain there’s something sinister taking place here._

A few minutes later Terezi’s phone buzzes again.

_Stay safe._

* * *

“You think it might _actually_ be Vriska?”

“Yes, I do,” Rose sighs at her wife as she removes her coat and scarf, “the theory is sound. I didn’t notice until the session was over, but Vriska and Roxy share their blind spot quality.”

“Why only then?” Kanaya takes Rose’s scarf and folds it, listening intently.

“I had no interest in peering further when it came to Vriska,” Rose shrugs, “I looked far enough to know I trusted she knew what she was doing, but beyond that I had no interest. She was, as everyone so loved to say, a huge bitch. When we got back to Earth I tried to see if she had made it out of the calamity with Lord English.”

“And you saw nothing?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Would it be possible that she just… died?”

“Yes, but, I can’t confirm what happened to her, because she’s a blackout.” Rose shakes her head. “If I knew what happened to her, I would’ve told Terezi.”

* * *

When the fight is over, Vriska chooses a direction to fly in and sticks with it. The only thing she neglected to account for in her flawless plan was how to get home. But Vriska is the luckiest person in paradox space, so she’s pretty sure that if she just goes with her gut, things will turn out fine. Only when she’s already on the move does she check to see if she’s gotten any messages.

_4 L1TTL3 TOO MUCH R34L1TY FROM 4N 1D1OT WHO'S MOR3 M3SS3D UP 1NS1D3 TH4N SH3 3V3R L3TS ON_

_UM_

_4NYW4Y_

_L4T3R, S3RK3T_

The next thing she realises is that her chat client is busted, and she can’t respond. She’s not even sure if Terezi can see she’s read the messages. The wall of text bites at her, stings and pokes and prods and she spends so much time thinking about it that when she stops she has no idea where she is. Vriska looks behind herself, but the remnants of her battle with Lord English are gone. She looks ahead and sees nothing but darkness. Everywhere Vriska looks, there’s nothing but a deep expanse of black. No stars. No landmarks.

No way of knowing if she’s even moving at all.

Uncertainty pulls at the back of her mind, but she squashes it down and changes into her god tier clothes, because she has a feeling it’s going to be a very long journey. She closes her eyes, turning slowly in the void until she can’t tell which way was up to begin with, and then she starts flying again.

* * *

She tries to avoid thinking about how long she’s been moving for, and she tries to avoid thinking about how everyone is doing in the new universe. For the most part, Vriska tries to avoid thinking at all. When she does, it’s about Terezi. Not their past, not their future, because thinking about that makes her hope or regret and Vriska’s never been huge on either of those things, and she doesn’t want to start dwelling on it now. So she thinks about Terezi, and what she’s going to say to her.

* * *

The next time Vriska stops it’s because a planet is visible. Not as a small dot on the horizon, but as an enormous orb that appears out of nothing. Vriska’s close enough to it that she thinks she might actually be within its atmosphere, and from this distance it looks like Earth. It looks at great deal like Earth, in fact.

She thinks it might be Earth.

Vriska has no idea why it just appeared in front for her, but she’s not complaining. She wants to stop flying. She wants to feel solid ground beneath her feet, and she wants to know how much time has passed. She wants to find her friends. She wants to find Terezi.

* * *

Terezi doesn’t like it when it rains. It muddles her senses, reduces her to actually needing her cane. Makes getting herself a glass of water into a performance, but she manages it anyway. She turns away from the sink with her glass, leans against the counter to take a sip but doesn’t manage it before the glass slips from her fingers and smashes to pieces on the floor of her kitchen. Her cane clatters to the ground. There’s water and broken glass surrounding her bare feet, but it doesn’t grab her attention.

Someone’s in her apartment.

“Who’s there?” She growls, “I can smell you.” She really can smell them. Overpowering the scent of _wet_ is **black** , like liquorice, like an oil slick. Terezi would assume it were a Dersite if it weren’t for the faintest tang of ripe oranges hiding beneath the permeating smell of **black**. All she can hear is the rain, and all she can smell is darkness, so when Terezi steps forward she’s genuinely blind. She treads on glass but keeps going, the familiar smell of her own blood not reaching her nose. She heads towards where she thinks the pitch is deepest, where the faint orange scent seems to come from, and reaches out with her hand.

Not even the red of her glasses is perceptible.

The tips of her fingers brush against fabric, and the contact sends the intruder running. There’s a thud, a yelp, another thud. The _crunch_ of broken glass under weight, a muttered Alternian curse and then scrambling footsteps. Terezi’s door opens and slams back shut. Terezi wants to follow, but her foot is beginning to hurt, so instead she sits down and observes the darkness slowly lifting. She tends to her foot quickly and then goes to retrieve her cane. While she’s bent over, she checks the blood on the floor. Most of it is her own, but the scent of someone else’s mixed in is there.  

* * *

At first, when John had given Terezi a key to his place, he didn’t know how to explain _why_ he had done it. It’s the reason why he’s not alarmed when he hears someone coming into his house while he’s showering, and also the reason why he’s not surprised when he walks into his living room to find Terezi lying face down on his couch.

“What’s up?” He asks, digging water out of his ear with a towel.

“Bad day.”

“Here to take it out on me?”

“Of course.”

“What happened?” John walks by the couch and into the kitchen. “Want something to drink?” John likes being nice to people - it makes him happy and it makes them happy. It even makes Terezi happy, in a weird, alien, roundabout way. And, yeah, he thinks she’s totally insufferable, but he _also_ thinks that she’s a lot of fun, and that when push comes to shove, she’ll so what she thinks is the right thing even if it’s hard. Even if it means sacrificing something that means the world to her. Terezi doesn’t answer his question, so he comes back out with a bottle of water for himself and puts it down on the coffee table.

“Thanks.” Terezi snatches it up as soon as he lets go, and takes a sip. He scowls.

“Seriously?”

“Yep,” Terezi says, pulling a shoe off, “check this out.” She puts her bandaged foot onto the table.

“Holy shit! What happened to you?”

“Someone broke into my apartment.” Terezi takes her foot off the table and explains what happened to her barely an hour earlier. By the time she’s done, John is sitting beside her and properly administering first aid to her foot.

“It’s disgusting how helpful you insist on being.”

“It’s gross how happy you are taking advantage of it.” John says, putting the finishing touches on her bandages, “Who do you think it was?”

“It’s not obvious?”

“No?”

“Figures.” Terezi scoffs, so John scoffs, and it’s going to become a Thing if John doesn’t do something quickly.

“So, who was it then?”

“Vriska.” Terezi’s tone implies that she’s not making a guess in the dark, but John can’t help his hesitation.

“Uh, Terezi, I don’t if that’s really, uh.” He scratches the back of his head. “Possible?” He frowns. “Like, not that I don’t think she’s going to come home or whatever, but it’s been… a _really_ long time.” John looks at Terezi, who is very carefully taking her glasses off. “And you told me about that stuff you said to her, and it doesn’t really make sense for her to be back without replying to that, and…” he trails off as Terezi plucks his glasses off his nose, setting them down beside hers. “And, uh, it’s been, like. Nearly seven years, and, um.” Terezi grabs the collar of his shirt and wrings her fist into it - dammit he _likes_ this shirt - and tugs him closer so hard that he feels like he’s being choked for a second. With the tug comes a ripping sound - he _liked_ this shirt, dammit! - and he waits for Terezi to finish doing… whatever it is she’s doing.

“You have _no idea_ how much I hate you right now.”

Overall, John still finds his relationship with Terezi very confusing, even if he has gotten used to it. He understands it enough to be comfortable with it - he doesn’t think Terezi would behave the way she does if it _did_ make him uncomfortable - but it’s all very confusing, and it’s hard to explain his feelings adequately. Karkat still insists that, _yes Egbert, that’s what having a kismesis is like_ , and John’s okay with it, he is. He really is.

“I just don’t want you to get let down over this,” John says, keeping his voice low, “I know how important it is to you.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

John doesn’t freak out when Terezi kisses him anymore. The first time it happened he _definitely_ freaked out, and it had ended with Terezi slapping him across the face and walking away, which was followed by a week or two of communication through Karkat - something Karkat is still teased about relentlessly. The next time John _thought_ it was going to happen Terezi could tell he was expecting it, and it had ended with her flicking his nose when he shut his eyes, and then laughing at him for twenty minutes. It had bruised his ego, sure, but it was also kind of awesome. Kind of awesome and so, so infuriating.

Which means everything is totally fine, Terezi has a key to his house, that’s normal. She can waltz in with bleeding feet and call him stupid and ruin his shirt, and generally put him in a bad mood whenever she wants, and that’s normal. He’ll make her agree to buy him a new shirt, and maybe he’ll convince her to watch a movie with him and she can make rude comments about it the whole time. It’ll piss him off, sure, but he knows he’ll be pissing her off right back, and the satisfaction of knowing that will make it worth it.

John doesn’t know how to explain a lot of things to do with Terezi, but it turns out just shrugging and saying “she’s my kismesis” is good enough for other people, so it’s good enough for him too.

* * *

Vriska’s never made a habit of running away from things. All things considered, Vriska approaches things head on, and if she starts running it tends to be _towards_ the danger, not away from it. It may be a point of beating a dead horse by now – not that Vriska knows anything about it – but she took it upon herself to fight Lord English. Which is about as far as a person can get from running away when something is scary, Vriska thinks.

All of that said, Vriska is running full pelt away from Terezi’s apartment, hands bleeding.

The whole ‘Earth appearing out of thin air’ thing is beginning to make more sense. Vriska had chalked it up to the fact that she’d destroyed The Green Sun and that probably made things around paradox space somewhat wonky, but now she’s starting to think it was actually _her_. She’d done something, _somehow_ , that was making the dark follow her. She had a few running theories, but right now she wasn’t focusing on the _theories_ as much as the _running_. When she’d gotten into Terezi’s apartment – a lucky case of her not leaving her door locked – everything had been fine, but then Terezi had started turning around and all the light in the room vanished. She’d been able to see Terezi just fine at that point, but the closer she’d gotten to Vriska the murkier she got, until she simply faded away.

Then a hand had landed on her cowl, and she ran. Ran and tripped and got fucking glass in her hands and now she’s _fuck knows where_ without a clue of what to do.

It’s a whole new world she’s in. She looks around and sees trolls and humans having conversations over garden fences, and she’s hit with just how _foreign_ it is. Everything is peaceful. There’s no impending doom, there’s no masterful scheme to carry out. She walks to a nearby bench and sits, digging the glass out of her palms. Taking her time, she comes to the conclusion that she’s in a new world, and maybe that means she should take the opportunity to try something new. Terezi looked barely over ten sweeps, which meant Vriska had been flying for two and a half sweeps. _Two and a half sweeps_.

Vriska knows she’s never been a good person before, but she’s been nothing now longer than she’s ever been anything else. Maybe she can try being good. _Real_ good, not fake good, which is just bad actions justified by good intentions, and not _pansy_ fake good, like that disgraceful undercut having Vriska Serket wannabe.

She’s not really sure what being a good person looks like in this world. Heroics just isn’t about killing the bad guy anymore.

* * *

When Terezi says she hates him, she means it. In that moment, that handful of seconds where John’s trying to bring her down, ground her to protect her from her own feelings, she hates him so entirely, so _platonically_ , the memory of another lifetime flickers through her mind. She can taste teal and purple and sense blistering heat below her, and she can feel that desperation, that _rage_. For just a moment, Terezi really, truly wants John to be dead, or maimed, or…

The feeling ebbs away and she’s left with a sick feeling in her stomach. He responds, kind and caring and so demoralising, so she retorts, but it’s more a formality than anything else. It lacks all the venom of her previous statement, and when she follows up by kissing him it’s a lament. As far as Terezi is aware, to associate sadness with a kismesis is unorthodox but not unheard of – and John has made her sad.

One of Terezi’s favourite things about John is how pliable his emotions are. It’s stunningly easy to rile him up, and he’s just as easy to placate, when necessary. She figures it’ll be no different to that, no different to how she usually aims to ruin his mood. She wants to empty her misery out and into him, she wants to see how he likes it.

When Terezi pulls away, she meets John’s very confused gaze, and shakes her head.

“This is ridiculous.” She stands up, ignores John’s protesting about her foot, and limps her way out of his house. John calls out, says she can stay the night, suggests she shouldn’t be alone, states he’s a little worried. She responds by flipping him off.

“Don’t worry nerd, you’re still infuriating.”

* * *

Left without a better option, Vriska drifts. She’s surprisingly good at it, surprisingly good at flowing in and out of communities with finesse, leaving a trail of good deeds behind her like bread crumbs. They are, of course, good deeds that can only be committed by the morally grey, and Vriska’s more aware now than she ever was before – wisdom coming with age and all that – that she’s never really going to claw her way out of morally grey. That’s fine. When she was five she paralysed her friend, killed the next and blinded the third and it all ended up being incredibly important to saving the world. When she was six she liked to make doomsday devices that didn’t work. When she was seven she endorsed the permanent destruction of millions, possibly billions, of souls of people she knew and cared about because see above.

The point is, Vriska tried being bad and it ended with good, she tried being bad and it ended with nothing, she tried being good and it took a whole lot of bad to pull anything off. She truly feels neither here nor there about it, long since having come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing as all one or all the other. Vriska understands that most people’s spines are made of stuffing, and hers is steel, and she should probably do _something_ with that, whether it be good or bad. Her gut drives her decisions, and her gut hasn’t steered her wrong. It would be miraculous if she weren’t the _luckiest motherfucker in paradox space._

She sits in bars and side eyes people she has bad feelings about, and they always end up on the curb and she always ends up with a free drink, so everyone is happy. People _love_ to talk to her, too. They sit down and ask her where she’s from, what she does, who she is. Vriska is steadfastly cagey about the entire affair, but she lets information get pried free from time to time. She tells how many sweeps she is; she tells that she’s been in enough scraps to know her way around a set of dice.

She doesn’t talk about her wings.

She doesn’t tell people her name.

She doesn’t talk about where she’s from.

All in all, she spins a good enough yarn that she can get away with it, and people tend to assume that she’s some history buff on the saviour’s story – she learns a lot from the stories other people tell, and learns about her _own_ legacy this same way.

“The _True Scorpio_ , yeah. That’s what they call her nowadays. When the saviours returned – it wasn’t too long ago, keep in mind – she wasn’t with them, and there’s been talk of having a memorial day for her ever since. There’s not a whole lot about her in the annals, but what there is seems pretty significant.”

“Yeeeeeeeeah, she’s cool.”

“I don’t really know why you’re asking me about her though, you must know more than anybody.” The guy is just toeing the line between tipsy and drunk, and Vriska is happy to take advantage of it here. She raises an eyebrow, slowly. He gestures to her clothes.

“The only concrete thing we have on her is that she was a light player.”

“That so?” She grins and kicks her feet up onto a chair. “Me, I’m just a fan of the colour scheme.”

* * *

Vriska’s not sure why, but the god tier clothes have a tendency to change when no one is paying attention. She supposes it’s just another lingering effect of the game. Overall it usually works in her favour, and this evening is no exception. Tonight she’s in a hostel, having befriended some humans who work there. She’s not complaining because it means she’s got a bed to sleep on, but it turns out that this hostel gets rowdier than the average bar. She’s sitting and chatting quietly with some travellers, enjoying the feeling of sharing her lack of roots with her peers, and a few belligerently drunk fellows waltz into the rear courtyard of the establishment.

On the whole, Vriska’s never liked the effects of soporifics. They make people mean, clumsy, sharp and blunt at once in the most destructive form of the combination. Before anyone gets a foot in their chute stuffer, when she says they make people mean, she means they make people mean without purpose. Just drunk and stupid and picking on people who don’t deserve it. It sickens her, frankly, and she smells trouble as soon as the men walk in. It’s a mix of trolls and humans, and she shifts in her seat to make sure she can get up quickly if need be. It doesn’t take long for the action to be worth it, because the ringleader – an indigo blood who looks nauseatingly like Equius – shoves down an employee, destroying a table in the process. Vriska’s the first on her feet, and she doesn’t see as much as she feels the shadows all around leaping from surfaces to cling to her as she stalks up to him.

“Hey, who the fuck do you think you are?” Vriska’s snarl catches the attention of everyone who hadn’t been staring at her already – everyone had been staring at her anyway – and when the shadows retreat back to where they belong it’s enough to send two of the thugs running. She sees a gaping maw covering the lower half of her face out of the corner of her eye, reflecting off a pint glass. The ringleader towers over her.

“You looking for trouble?” He spits on her glasses.

“Funny, I thought that’s what you were doing. Cause you certainly found me.” He responds by delivering a right cross to her face, destroying her nose and glasses in one go. There’s a sharp, silent intake of breath shared by everyone else present. Vriska doesn’t give a _shit_.

With something probably _far_ too close to delight, Vriska snatches a bottle from the table nearby and smashes it over his head. The sheer momentum of the action sends most of the other hooligans off, tails between their legs. The not-Equius roars and grabs her throat, looking around to check his backup.

“Five to one ain’t good odds for you, _bitch_. Maybe you should stop while you’re ahead.” She laughs.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she cackles, “if it’s a game of chance we’re playing then you’re in way over your head.”

“How’s that?” The laughter shakes him, but Vriska can see fury coiling in his eyes.

“I never lose, asshole.” Vriska looses her dice onto the ground and doesn’t even bother to check what the roll is before she slams her hand into his elbow, pushing the joint in a direction it is _not_ supposed to go in. The blow isn’t hard enough to break anything, his arms are practically made of iron, but it does get him to let go. Quick as lightning she grabs his collar and throws her forehead into his nose.

Tit for tat.

She’s been caught in fights since she got to Earth. It’s not shocking, Vriska’s kind of a huge bitch. She’s definitely noticed that when she gets caught in particularly frisky situations that whatever shade is nearby seems to dance to life in her peripherals, but never like this before. She focuses on the not-Equius in front of her, but as she moves she can see the others flailing around, trying to brush off shadows that have no logical reason to be on their clothes. It keeps them off her back, and she delights in beating the _tar_ out of this guy. He treats her in kind, and even though it’s obvious trolls don’t have the same murderous, violent culture here like they did on Alternia, there’s certainly something exhilarating about this fight to both of them.

Probably something to do with the temperament of their castes, but she _really_ doesn’t care right now. Boxing his ears earns her a kick to the groin, he finds purchase on her hair and tugs so hard a clump leaves her head to join his hand, so she snaps the fingers on his other hand back till she hears them _crunch_.

_Man_ , she loves fighting.

She’s stepping back to push her bloody hair out of her eyes when a pair of humans grab her from behind. Vriska recognises the contact as an attempt to drag her back, as opposed to hold her still, so she lets it happen. A moment later she _deeply_ regrets that decision because it gives not-Equius the chance to pick up the bottle she smashed over his head and swipe at her abdomen with it. _Motherfucker_.

One hand flies to cover the gash below her bellybutton, she snaps the other to her temple and focuses. Not-Equius drops the glass, steps back and sits down on a bench.

“Why didn’t you just do that to begin with?” Vriska thinks the guy she was talking to before she got up is the one who says it.

“More fun my way.”

* * *

The people working at the hostel hide her away before the police show up, only because she’s too drained to object. Her consciousness swings like a pendulum from lucid to numb, and in the meantime someone stitches her shut. As soon as she’s able, Vriska tries to leave. She’s told _no_ , she’s told she needs to heal, she’s told they want to talk to her about what happened.

Vriska isn’t on board with _any_ of that nonsense, so she crawls into a spare recuperacoon when no one’s looking. When she wakes she pulls the thread out herself and attempts to slip out unnoticed.

“You know, I’ve heard wings are a genetic mutation for you guys.” One of the guys who works at the hostel is sitting on the front porch with a cigarette. Vriska stops and looks at him.

“Yeah. So?”

“You said some pretty weird stuff last night. We wrote it off mostly, you were fairly out of it. But someone asked where you got your wings, as a joke, and you know what you said?”

“Clearly I don’t.”

“You said you earned them. Said you died for ‘em.”

“Crazy story.” Vriska says. The guy looks at her.

“Sure. How’d you fix your glasses?”

“I had these spare. Can I leave now?” Vriska’s tone is heading away from polite at this point.

“Don’t you want to make sure I don’t say anything?” There’s a loftiness about him, and Vriska decides to entertain him a moment longer.

“Make sure you don’t say anything about what?”

“Seeing as there hasn’t been some huge fanfare about the return of the final saviour, maybe there’s a reason for it.”

“Maybe she hasn’t shown up.”

“Maybe she has some vested interest in keeping things on the down low.”

“ _Maybe_ ,” with this word, darkness descends, leaving them both in an apparent void, “attempting to extort the person in question is a bad idea.” She can see the sweat on his brow. “Has that occurred to you?”

“Uh,”

“But, then again, maybe it’s none of the above. Maybe I just don’t care in the slightest whether or not people know I’m back.”

“Wait, are you actually confirming,”

“No one will believe you anyway.” Vriska shrugs. The darkness lifts, and Vriska walks away before the man can try to say anything else.

* * *

After that, there’s a buzzing of her presence following Vriska wherever she goes. Rumours spread like wildfire and nothing can stop something that wild, that dangerous. Vriska knows this means that her old friends know she’s back too, she knows this means that if Terezi had any doubt about it in the first place she certainly doesn’t know. Thinking about Terezi isn’t something Vriska really wants to be doing, but it’s hard for her mind to stray too far from her. All the time she was flying she focused on Terezi, and when she’d confronted her she’d been swallowed by the dark that still seems to be following Vriska wherever she goes.

It’s something she’s certainly more comfortable with now, but she still doesn’t know how it works. Sometimes everything will be perfectly normal, others it rises off her skin like smoke. Sometimes it’s as subtle as people’s shadows being cast a little too big, or a little too dark. Sometimes she looks at her hands and she can almost see strings tied to her fingers, woven to her like she’s some ultimate shadow puppeteer.

She’s at a 24-hour diner listening to a woman tell her life story – literally – when Vriska’s mind wanders back to Terezi. She only vaguely notices the woman’s story trailing off.

“Sorry, I must be boring you to death.” The woman says, gently prodding Vriska’s elbow.

“No, no, I was just thinking about someone.”

“Your matesprit?”

“My moirail, actually.” Vriska sighs slowly and toys with her hair. “Haven’t seen her in a while.” Vriska frowns, “Not in ages, actually. She might, uh. Might’ve moved on, come to think of it.”

“How long?”

“Couple years,” Vriska murmurs, “I had something I had to do.”

“How were things when you left?”

“Pretty good. Great, I think. She said some stuff, just after I was gone. Left messages for me, said some stuff I’ve been thinking about for a while now.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“A lot of self-reflection stuff, but also a lot about what she thought of me – of us. It’s just like her, really, to say a bunch of stuff like she knows what I’m thinking. She thought I pitied her.”

“Isn’t that the point…?”

“Ugh, _no_.” Vriska rolls her eyes. “I had a friend who used to say that. It’s all hate or pity, but that doesn’t explain how I feel about her. Like, I _admire_ her.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean, you’ve never met someone as sharp as her. She had this knack, right, of tricking you into thinking you had the upper hand because she knew what you’d do with it, and you’d just… Fall right into her trap. Didn’t matter what it was, she could set anyone up to do anything. No special powers or tricks or skills, just her brain and her tongue.” Vriska shakes her head. “I hope she’s figured that out now. In those messages she talked about how she admired me for being confident, but I don’t think it ever occurred to her that I’m only confident because I know what I’m capable of. Like,” Vriska chuckles, “she even _said_ that about me. How could she not figure out that being confident is knowing what you can and can’t do?”

“Well, people tend to be pretty stupid about themselves. I think you’re actually the weird one in this equation.”

“Maybe.” Vriska sighs. “I hope someone’s talked some sense into her since.” Vriska taps her finger on the table. “Seeing her will be sad, I think. I’m pretty sure even if she hasn’t moved on, we’ve both long since grown out of that relationship.”

“Let’s talk about something else, then. How’d you meet her?”

“Online, mutual interests. At the time I had exactly one other friend and he… he was a freak. Lived next to him most of my childhood. Anyway, I met her online and we were thick as thieves after that. Pretty sure she was waxing caliginous for me at one point.”

“ _Really_? How do you go from that to a moirallegiance?”

“It’s not as weird as it sounds. I’ve always been the dangerous one – I think it was just a matter of her deciding to reel me in instead of egging me on.” Vriska frowns. “This all happened such a long time ago.”

“Why don’t you talk to her?”

“You know,” Vriska says, “I’m not sure.”

* * *

When Vriska ends up knocking on Karkat’s front door instead of Terezi’s, there are a number of potential explanations. If you were to imply to Vriska that the reason was ‘she chickened out of talking to Terezi’ she would hit you and then deny it, and then maybe hit you a second time. Despite that, she’s knocking on Karkat’s door because she chickened out of talking to Terezi. The door opens and before Vriska gets a chance to do anything, it slams shut again. Before she can so much as grunt in surprise, it swings open again and Karkat stares up at her for a second, squinting.

“Holy fuck,” he says, jaw dropped, “you’re alive.” The moment where Vriska would make some snarky comment comes and goes, and the moment where she says anything at all comes and goes, until she just steps forward and pulls him into a hug.

It’s a little strange, but Karkat hugs her back, and they stay like that for a short while. Finally, when at least four people have walked past them, they let go and Karkat invites Vriska inside.

“I really never thought I’d say this, but I’m happy to see you.” Karkat asks to know what happened after she went through the fenestrated plane, so she tells him, all the way up to her arriving on Earth.

“How long have you been back?”

“A couple months.” Vriska answers. “It took me a little time to find out where you guys were, but I’ve been seeing the sights as well.”

“Still, I’m a little surprised Terezi hasn’t said anything about it to me.” Karkat frowns at his drink, and Vriska can’t _believe_ she’s embarrassed right now but that’s just how the dice fall, she guesses.

“Well, that’s probably because I haven’t gone to see her yet.”

“Wait, _what_?” Karkat’s voice jumps from calm to roaring in two words. “You haven’t seen Terezi yet?” He’s on his feet now, yelling at full volume. “What the fuck’s _wrong_ with you? Why are you here right now?” Karkat keeps yelling like this, and with a faint sense of dismay, Vriska observes the room grow darker and darker with each shout. Eventually, Karkat notices and stops shouting to comment on it.

“Wait, is this that bullshit ‘darkness forever’ stuff you were talking about?” “Yeah,” Vriska says. As if it has a mind of its own, when Vriska speaks the dark starts shrouding her from Karkat’s view like ivy.

“Hey, what’s – are you fucking – _cut that out_!”

“Newflash, you colossal fuckwit, I _can’t_.” Vriska’s on her feet now too, ignoring the feeling of the dark slipping up her neck as she screams back in Karkat’s face, “If I knew how to control it I wouldn’t _be_ here.”

“Save the fucking sob story, Terezi’s been waiting for you this whole time-”

“You think finding her wasn’t the _first thing_ I did when I got here-”

“She was a fucking wreck without you at first-”

“You don’t know a damn thing about how she felt when I was gone-”

“Who do you think she’s been talking to about it since?”

Vriska’s got Karkat beat out on a lot of things. She’s taller, a better leader, (barely) more charismatic, stronger, faster – but Karkat is definitely louder. Loud enough that Vriska can hear him over her own shouting, loud enough to make her pause.

“I know that you and her were closer, but that’s a big fucking _past tense_ and since you left she’s been crying on _my_ _fucking shoulder_ about it.” When she stops speaking it’s because Karkat struck a nerve, and it makes her feel bad. But then he keeps talking and there’s a couple of seconds where she swears she can actually feel her heart throbbing with despair, and then a different feeling altogether takes over. When Karkat stops talking it’s not because he’s done, it’s because Vriska’s hand is around his neck, squeezing just hard enough to make him squirm.

“I swear to every horrorterror in paradox space, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying,” Vriska’s eyes lock onto the hand at Karkat’s throat, where darkness is oozing from her grip like ink, “if you’re saying you took my place,”

“ _What?_ ” Karkat squawks, “ _No!_ Are you out of your fucking mind?” Vriska’s grip loosens and Karkat pries himself the rest of the way out of her grasp.

“That’s practically the _opposite_ of what I was saying, _Jegus_. She’s only got one quadrant filled as far as I’m aware. She hasn’t gone red for anyone cause she’s been waiting for you to come back.”

The murk lifts. Vriska even has the courtesy to look apologetic.

“And because something in your think pan is _clearly_ broken, you’re here giving me a hard fucking time instead of talking to her.”

“I still think you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Holy _shit_ , stop being such an egregious fucking _bitch_ and go _talk_ to her already.”

* * *

After that day, the day with her ‘anonymous’ intruder and walking out on John, it takes Terezi some time to get back to feeling normal. It’s not the first time Karkat’s stepped in to auspisticise them – no matter how vehemently he insists that’s not what he’s doing – and Terezi doubts it’ll be the last. She keeps her nose out, keeps tabs on Rose’s theories, but there’s nothing to be found. Rose tells her one day about a month later,

“There’s nothing there to be found; I’m sorry.”

After that Terezi bites the bullet and reasons that Vriska will come back when she’s ready. Once the decision is made, Terezi feels normal. More normal than ever. It’s a relief, really. For sweeps, Terezi had dared to hope Vriska would come back, and now she _knew_ that Vriska would be home soon.

Terezi could wait a little more.

* * *

There’s no household Terezi enjoys as much as the one shared by Jade, Roxy and Calliope. First, everything smells great, second, something explodes every time she visits, and, most importantly, they let her lick anything she wants. Even if it’ll electrocute her, they let her lick it. Sometimes Jade licks things too.

This is the kind of life Terezi wishes she could lead all the time.

So when Jade asks her to come over to help tend the garden while Calliope and Roxy are out visiting Jane, Terezi is there before Roxy and Calliope are even gone. While the three of them do their despicably cute kissing each other goodbye Terezi wastes no time in picking a petal off a rose and tossing it in her mouth to suck on.

“You know, it’s not my favourite shade of red, but it’s good in its own way.” Terezi sticks out her tongue when Jade comes back into the greenhouse. “Why aren’t you going with them?”

“Because Kanaya’s doing something with Rose tonight and I don’t trust anyone else unsupervised with my garden.”

“I’d be offended if that weren’t so sensible.”

The way Terezi helps Jade garden is by keeping her company rather than actually getting her hands dirty – Jade had learnt that lesson well when Terezi had made an admirable but disastrous attempt at cross-pollination – and that’s how she gets to the point of being told about black holes.

“…and I just think the process of creating a black hole is really cool!”

“Hey,” Terezi perks up, shifts her grip on her cane, “how do black holes die?”

“Oh, that’s really interesting too!” Jade’s tail whips back and forth in a frenzy, “There’s two ways it can happen, technically speaking. A black hole can be dragged into the gravitational pull of another, and whichever black hole is bigger will absorb the smaller one. The other way is much cooler, though. So, black holes are points of incredible gravitational force. Totally inescapable, pulling indescribably amounts of energy into their centres. How they die is by slowly emitting all that energy back out again. Like it’s fraying at the edges; unravelling until there’s nothing left.”

Terezi hums an acknowledgement, and Jade starts telling her about white dwarfs.

* * *

Terezi is waiting for Dave to arrive when there’s a knock on her door. She checks the time and, yeah, there’s no _way_ Strider is forty minutes early. Terezi goes to the door, wondering if she’s forgotten about a delivery, or someone is surprising her. It’s the latter, but the surprise is more unexpected than she could have anticipated.

It’s also much, much better.

When she opens the door, Terezi is greeted by the scent of ripe, delicious oranges. For a moment, the world stops turning. Everyone and everything stands still, just for a moment. A pregnant pause, a baited breath, a comma. The world stands still, and Terezi with it, as she waits for Vriska to say something.

Once it’s all over, once the game is won and the world re-established, everyone moves on. Each person in their party dedicates themselves to dreams they lost to a game, finally returned after years of waiting. Everyone moves on, except for Terezi. Terezi waits for Vriska to come home.

“Hey.” Vriska grins.

“Hi.” And now, nearly three sweeps later, she finally gets what she waited for.

Terezi grins.

**Author's Note:**

> Like and comment as you wish!
> 
> Or tell me what you think at my tumblr!
> 
> http://downhilltumbler.tumblr.com


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